BT uses Twitter as a customer relations tool

While desperately trying to sort out my phone line problem this week I used my @grannybuttons account on Twitter to explain the problem to the wider world.

To my surprise there was a quick reply from user @BTCare  saying 'This is not good' and offering help by direct message.  Clearly they monitor for the letters 'BT' in the twitterstream - perhaps others too, such as 'broadband'.

One thing led to another, and I was surprised how quickly and personally I struck up a relationship with  a named person within BT, and whom I really got a sense was batting for me.

Two days on, they are still mystified as to how my phone line/account just disappeared into the aether.  My name and address are still on the BT system, but any record of orders has evaporated like morning dew and they are scratching their collective head as to how it happened.

But in the last 48 hours I've had more regular contact with a lady in BT than with almost any other tweeter in the last year.  Which is a GOOD THING. 

And she's even offered to check for availability of a good new phone number on my local Burton exchange, one that might spell out a word on a phone keypad.   (Sadly, 'albion' and 'granny' were unavailable.)

A BT engineer will now attend next Monday to double-check the line and ensure it's set up right.  It could have been earlier, but I couldn't guarantee being in.

Meanwhile I'm not bothering to phone up BT for support any more.  Tweeting @btcare seems to be far more effective - and it's free and must less exasperating than Touchtone Hell at 20p/minute.

 

A codicil:  Yesterday, during this stream of Twitter messages, someone from somewhere else in BT phoned up to ask what the problem was, two days after I initially reported it by phone. 

I was amused to find that this other person didn't even know about 'BTCare' and was a bit confused as to what Twitter was.  And knew less about my case.

Comments

[Ray Oakhill]

Pleased to hear that someone in that enormous organisation of fine folk, called BT, is interested in your problem at last! Good luck on Monday. My Virgin Media broadband came back on stream this morning after 10 days in the wilderness - Hooray! Now is the time to set it all out in writing and hope for some compensation. It's a good job I don't have a business depending on it! BTW, I didn't call Virgin "Fine Folk" at the time!

Ray